Deviant behavior is the process of doing something or actions that are against the social norms or against the standards of what should be happening in society (Clinard & Meier, 2015). The incident where “The Impact Team” was able to get access to the data of AshleyMadison.com, which was being used by users who practiced extramarital affairs, was wrong and unethical (Ashdown et al., 2019). Accessing personal data which involved email addresses was a bad one as it was a breach of privacy, which caused some to commit suicide and others to be publically humiliated in the process. Hacking itself is wrong, and even getting to the point of releasing personal data to the public to expose those practicing extramarital affairs was also a deviant behavior. The event led to serious effects on the users, which included suicides, extortion, shaming of the users in public due to their information, and legal consequences to users who are citizens of countries that do not condone infidelity.
The most form of deviance among the three is theft and releasing of the information of the users to the public by “The Impact Team.” The form is the most deviant because privacy should be a priority, and when one takes information about you without your consent, then the person is going against the law. The Privacy Act demands that personal data should not be shared if the person involved has not given permission to do so (Baumer et al., 2004). The Impact Team, therefore, was deviant and went against social order by hacking into the systems of the website and releasing the data to the public. To add to that, they knew that the users were married, but they overlooked the consequences and went ahead to release the data. The public release and theft brought more negative effects than positive ones, as the users were publicly humiliated and extorted, and some even committed suicide to avoid public humiliation.
Behavior like suicide should not be labeled as deviant because it was something that happened due to the public humiliation that the users were facing due to the theft and public release of their personal information. Because the users were married couples who were looking for partners due to either their marriages failing or they were never happy, the fact that their information was released to the public meant that they were going through double loss, and suicide was justifiable. Some of the users who committed suicide also were also from countries that could have dealt with them through capital punishment. They would have faced punishment through legal means one way or another, and the humiliation from the public was too much. The fact that their information was released to the public, even without their consent got, them unaware, and this meant they were going to opt for suicide to avoid all that. Therefore, I reject suicide as a form of deviance; rather, it is a way of preventing further public humiliation and avoiding capital punishment.
The hackers were the most punished most severely compared to the rest of the parties that were involved in the deviant. They broke the law by giving out personal information about the users, which led to negative consequences and even the suicide of the users. They were also punished because they hacked into the website servers and stole information about their clients without even informing them. Even though they helped those who were being cheated on by their partners, they should not have released the information to the public. They should have been punished more severely than the rest because they are the cause of the problem, and they should bear the consequences. The Impact Team, therefore, should have been punished severely because their main aim was never to help the users but to publicly humiliate them and make sure that they pay for being who they are and enjoying their freedom.
The website operators were also punished, but their punishment should not be severe as the hackers because they saw a niche in the market and they explored it. The punishment they should get is because they failed to protect the personal data of the users against hacking. They had assured the users that their data was safe, but they failed to deliver that, and the data was hacked, and consequences were felt by everyone using the website. Privacy of the user’s data should have been the number one priority, and failing to protect their data is a failure worth being punished for (Gopal et al., 2023). They should be punished but not as severely as the hackers of the website who were the primary causes of the problem.
The website users were to be least punished as it was never their fault that the information was released to the public. They had no control over the deviants that were happening as they thought their information was safe on the website. The countries where infidelity should be punished will have to bear with the situation because they knew that joining such a website was wrong, and they went ahead to do that. Their joining the website was a form of expressing their freedom of association, and when this information is hacked and exposed to the public is wrong, and they should be protected. The deviant results from the fact they are married people, but they are looking for other users to date.
References
Clinard, M. B., & Meier, R. F. (2015). Sociology of deviant behavior. Cengage Learning.
Ashdown, B. K., Hackathorn, J. M., & Daniels, J. (2019). Scandalous: Christian identification, sex guilt, and the mediated demonization of the participants in the AshleyMadison scandal. The Journal of Social Psychology, 159(3), 244–256.
Baumer, D. L., Earp, J. B., & Poindexter, J. C. (2004). Internet privacy law: a comparison between the United States and the European Union. Computers & Security, 23(5), 400–412.
Gopal, R. D., Hidaji, H., Kutlu, S. N., Patterson, R. A., & Yaraghi, N. (2023). Law, Economics, and Privacy: Implications of Government Policies on Website and Third-Party Information Sharing. Information Systems Research.
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